The travel team landed in Blantyre, Malawi after more than thirty hours of travel on Saturday, August 10th! While waiting in the airport for our luggage to arrive we watched a beautiful sunset. When we finally made it back to our accommodations, Naming’azi Farm, it was time for dinner and bed.

When we woke up on Sunday we were greeted by some monkeys right outside of our house at the Farm! After breakfast we split into two groups. The first group attended a meeting with Villages in Partnership (VIP), a non-governmental organization that facilitates our work. VIP works in-country year round and employs many local Malawians, like our friend, Joe. As a result, they are able to provide valuable resources and insight that help us to work with our partner communities.

The second group attended a church service with Bertha, a community liaison for VIP. There was beautiful song and dance, and EWB members were able to introduce themselves and even lead one of their own songs! On the walk back from church the two groups merged to collect water samples in Chilimani and Mphero, which are two communities that EWB has successfully implemented boreholes in. While in Chilimani, we also gathered information on a bridge using our DJI drone, recently donated by Bentley Systems, in order to create a database of information on local infrastructure. Later that night, team members met to conduct quality tests on the water. We are happy to report that we did not detect anything that does not comply with water quality standards, and the community reported that they have not had any problems with the EWB boreholes! All boreholes are fully functional and have not required any major maintenance.

We look forward to visiting our two new partner communities, Liti and Nkagula, tomorrow.

Zikomo,

Nicole Kennedy